


traviamento

by blackvogue



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 20:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackvogue/pseuds/blackvogue
Summary: basically read a particular part of cmbyn again the other day and it fucked me up so when i was feeling particularly angsty i just wrote this and nope i'm probably never going to finish it. wish i could end it on a mic drop moment but im too emotionally exhausted. also: im shit at writing so please enjoy





	traviamento

 

_everyone goes through a period of traviamento._

_when we take, say, a different turn in life._

_the other via._

_dante himself did._

_some recover, some pretend to recover,_

_some never come back,_

_some chicken out before even starting,_

_and some,_

_for fear of taking any turns,_

_find themselves leading the wrong life_

_all life long._

**André Aciman, _Call Me By Your Name_**

 

 

I looked at him from across the dimly lit room, his silhouette outlined from the moon that sat upon his shoulders. My father used to say I was poor at hiding how I truly felt, but right now I didn’t care for pretences. I’d spent too many years of my life smiling for my mother, smiling for on-off lovers, and smiling for a life I know I should be happy with.

For once, I wanted to be transparent. Let him see my pain.

It seemed like some sort of sick and twisted joke that here I was twenty-years later, waiting once again for him to cross that invisible line into my room.

I started to tremble, whether it be through frustration or from trying to hold myself back from crying, I wasn’t sure. It was enough to spur Oliver into motion anyhow, a few tentative steps and then he was beside me on the bed.

I stared down at our feet, feeling seventeen years old again. About to change the course of my life forever. As much as at times I hated myself, like right now, for the decisions I made, all I could think about was Oliver’s question: _Would you start again if you could?_ And my almost instantaneous response: _in a second._

‘I’m afraid I’ve wasted my life, Oliver.’

The words tumbled out into the silent room like a cliff-edge crumbling away as a result of an earthquake that had long since passed.

Oliver’s only reaction was a slight flinch, creating only a little more space between us. Was he upset? Angry? Offended? Did I care which?

‘I know you don’t feel that way because of your children and your wife. I know it’s not a waste but you’re the only thing I've ever been proud of having in this life and I have – I have nothing to show for it.’

‘-Elio.’ Oliver chides like I am a child.

‘Do- do you remember what my father said to us once? About a period of _traviamento_?’ My voice was already hoarse, trying desperately to stop me from voicing thoughts I’d nursed for many years.

I dared look at Oliver, who was closer than I’d expected him to be. His eyes were brimmed with tears and his hand was clenched on his knee like all his energy was being channelled into that one fist.

‘Do you remember?’ I asked again. I don’t know why I was torturing him this way. Maybe to see if it would torture him at all.

He nodded again, then kept nodding, the tears that had been on standby now dropping freely down his face. I don’t know if it was the mention of my father, or the particular words he spoke that day that brought this emotion out in him.

‘He said that some people don’t recover from it. That some never come back.’

Oliver knew what I was saying before I even needed to say it. He crumpled beside me, coloured with a certain shade of sadness I’d never seen him wear before.

The words rolled around on my tongue, ready to be freed. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop. Maybe because I could only envy his outpour of emotion, a kind of reckless sobbing I myself had reserved only for losing the love of my life and then my father, years later.

‘The thing is, I- I don’t think _I_ ever came back. I’m still in that _traviamento_ , waiting for you whilst you get married and have your children and then grandchildren. I don’t think my life was meant to be this way.’

I don’t mean to hurt him, I don’t think. Oliver life and Elio life. I’ve learnt now they’re not meant to be as one.

Oliver who was still hunched over, started whispering something to himself. I presumed he was cursing me, or the situation, but as my own beating heart settled I could depict a few words: _turns, leading, life_.

As I tried to work it out like some sort of riddle, Oliver straightened out to face me, cheeks ruddy and eyes swollen. His lips had stopped moving and now he just stared intently through the dark.

Somewhen, somehow, our heads had bowed so our foreheads met. Oh, to touch him again. He continued to sob silently, his hands coming to clasp my neck, the side of my head.

‘For some,’ He whispered a short while later, ‘for fear of taking any turns, find themselves leading the wrong life all life long.’

They were my father’s words. _I remember everything_.

Digesting what these words meant, I pulled away so I could see his face in its entirety, searching for his intent behind saying those particular words.

‘I love my children with all my heart.’ Oliver tells me. ‘I would take a bullet for my wife in an instant, but that doesn’t change the fact that, truthfully… I don’t feel as though it’s the life I was meant to have either.’

I felt winded.

‘I tried to separate the life I had with you and the life I have with them into two different worlds entirely. But, it doesn’t stop the fact that every morning I wake up and the first thing I think about is you. I have to say to myself; _no_. _Elio can’t be in this world._ Every day I try and build up that wall between them but you…you keep slipping through the cracks.’

I didn’t know how to take it. I couldn’t resent him for not wanting me in his life. I was always an anomaly in a life that was already carved out for him. Mostly, I just couldn’t believe he still thought about me. Every day.

‘I don’t think it’s fair on my kids or on my wife anymore. By denying myself what I want, I deny them the father and husband they deserve.’

 _I didn’t know what I was so afraid of, nor why I worried so much, nor why this thing that could so easily cause panic felt like hope sometimes, and, like hope in the darkest moments, brought such joy, unreal joy, joy with a noose around it._  


End file.
